The Art of Making a Trophy

One staple of any contestsare the prizes it gives away to the winners.While the runners-up always receive consolation prizes, it’s the champions that take home the gold, figuratively. The top prizes, if not cash, are either medals or trophies. Written below are steps and tips in making your very own trophy (for this craft, you don’t even need to be a legit trophy maker, just a creative individual who wants to reward people with handcrafted prizes).

1. If it’s your first time making a trophy of your own, you might want to turn to the Internet in order to print out a template. There are many websites that provide different shapes and sizes–whatever it is that you need–to create the base and handles of your trophy. When you have it printed out, trace its shape on cardboard and use a pair of scissors to cut them. Use construction paper for the handles instead of cardboard; they are lighter.

2. To create the body of your trophy, you are going to need two things

a. A toilet paper roll tube. If there is none, a smaller plastic or paper cup is alright as substitute.

b. Plastic or paper cup

What you need to do with them is paint them with the same shade or color, and then design them anyway you want. Trophy makers create distinctions or markings that are related to the event for which the trophies will be given away as prizes.It is a brilliant idea. (e.g. drawing, carving, or embellishing vines on the lid of the bigger cup for a harvesting contest such as The Biggest Pumpkin, etc.)

3. Glue one end of your toilet paper roll to your base and then the other on to the underside of the bigger cup. For this part, it is highly suggested that you use strong and reliable adhesives, not just simple clear glue because you don’t want your trophy to be coming apart just at the moment that you were giving them. Glue guns are recommended, especially if the cardboard you chose for this craft is a bit on the thick side. In that case, glue just might not be enough.

4. Fold a portion of your handles and make it so that they look like wings. Glue those wings on the side of the bigger cup. At this point, it is quite important to have steady hands as you don’t want to smear glue all over the body of your nearly finished trophy. You would also need a keen eye for this in order to make sure that there is just the right distance between the handles, and that they are not, in any way, skewed in their adhesion. We want your trophy to look as if it were made by a professional trophy maker.

5. Once you’re done, let it sit and dry. Repeat procedure with other trophies and create as many as you need.